Title: Don’t Look Down

acast Time: 1:06:48
Youtube Time: N/A

Original Record Date: Unknown
acast Publication Date: November 29, 2019
Youtube Publication Date: N/A

Please Welcome a Man
Who couldn’t believe, like most of you, that Pret wasn’t even open today. What’s going on?

Acronym Modification
Richard Herring’s London’s Smelliest Toilet Podcast

Cool Kids
I was hanging around in Eat because Pret a Manger’s closed. I never usually go to Eat but they call it…

Guest Best Known
For his appearance on This Morning With Holly and Phil.

Audience

Better or Worse than Last Week: N/A
Like or Unlike Wikipedia: N/A

Member Member Note
N/A N/A

Emergency Questions

If you could take one item from any museum or art gallery – and you’re allowed to take it home with you – in the world, what would you take?

You know what? One thing I hate more than anything else is the words, “favourite”. You know, and those questions I’ve got a real dislike for them. Because I change my mind all the time. You know, I change my mind about which piece of art – Obviously I’ve got things that roll on, but I’ve never got a favourite becasue I think it’s reductive. You know, it’s like, “What’s your favourite colour?” My favourite colour is the one that goes with the one I put down just before it. And I think that, yeah, that idea of having a favourite, I think it can be uncreative thought. Because I like the fact that I’m constantly fluid and I’ve got my favourite – I like to be on stage and have a momentary thought and it passes. It’s funny then and its gone. And so the idea of having a favourite work of art, I find incredibly stultifying because I love the fact that there’s lots and lots of brilliant masterpieces out there and they’re constantly swooshing through my eyes and I will constantly be changing. And freshness – freshness and vitality – are probably one of the most important artistic, certainly in comedy. I mean, you know, I don’t feel like – I’m having a nice time this evening because you’re asking me good questions and I’m having fresh thoughts in front of an audience. And it’s a lovely, lovely, lovely experience. But you get those Hollywood stars who are asking the same question, Blah, blah, blah.” So fucking boring.

Have you ever tried to suck your own cock?

*RH notes that interviewing GP is like interviewing Van Gogh, but he would never ask Van Gogh that question.* Is that what Van Gogh did? No, it was something I knew I could never even get near. In fact, at my age the spunk wouldn’t even hit my face.

If you had a finger that could travel through time…

Ooh. Oh God, well I’d probably go there and I’d probably put it up, like, Michelangelo, where those two fingers are meeting on the Sistine Chapel and I’d go *makes some sort of motion*, and I’d make the fingers not quite point at each other. And I won’t have to, when people are like, “Oh, Michelangelo’s a great artist,” “No he’s not. Look, his fingers don’t even meet.”

Do you think anyone genuinely enjoys skiing?

I think that’s classist, because it is quite fun. I mean, I’m too old to go, because I was never a great skier. My wife was quite a smooth but a conservative skier. And I was like, I just learned very late in life and I just, like, threw myself down the hill. We’d get to the bottom at the same time but I would have fell off six times. But I was quicker in between the accidents.

Notes

Audio only.

RH pays tribute to his recently deceased friend Tony Brennan, who was the founder of the Oxford Revue Workshop, among other accomplishments.

RH suggests that of all his guests, GP is the only one who will still be well-known in 100 years time.

After GP responds to the emergency question about the piece he would take home from a museum or art gallery, RH expresses regret that he never thought of asking an artist what their favourite colour is.